You might say something like "Asking questions if you genuinely want to understand something better is great, but asking questions to try to frustrate or annoy me is not. I'm getting the sense that you're doing the latter."
Telling someone who tries to wage status conflicts with you that you want him to stop fighting for more status is pretty pointless.
I'm not sure "status conflict" is the only possibility here; for example, the terminal value might be something like autonomy, or feeling genuinely listened to.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.